WEEKLY: Chinese mills' steel stocks fall slowly
Inventories of rebar, wire rod and CRC continued falling this week, while the volume of HRC and medium plate started to move up as mills beefed up production, the survey showed.
Over August 4-10, total output of the five major steel items among the steelmakers sampled under Mysteel's weekly survey reached 9.06 million tonnes, up for the second week by another 1% on week, though the total was still 10.9% lower compared with the same period last year.
Some Chinese steel producers continued to increase their finished steel output this week, as their profit margins improved with the decrease in their production costs, Mysteel Global learned.
However, steel demand from end-users remained lackluster this week, as the high temperatures in many regions impacted work on construction sites, with project managers cutting purchases. This, coupled with the further rise in steel production, put some pressure on domestic steel prices.
For example, the daily trading volume of construction steel comprising rebar, wire rod and bar-in-coil among the 237 Chinese trading houses under Mysteel's tracking only averaged 145,471 tonnes/day over August 4-10, down by 30,940 t/d on week.
As of August 10, the national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar, a bellwether of domestic steel-market sentiment, was assessed by Mysteel at Yuan 4,283/tonne ($636/t) including the 13% VAT, lower by Yuan 17/t from one week before.
Inventories of these five steel items at commercial warehouses in the 132 Chinese cities Mysteel regularly monitors came in at 19.83 million tonnes over August 5-11, falling for the eighth consecutive week by another 2.4% on week and refreshing the lowest since February. But the on-week fall was slightly less steep than the 2.9% slide over the previous week, according to the survey.
Written by Nancy Zheng, zhengmm@mysteel.com
Edited by Zhenqi Yang, yangzhenqi@mysteel.com
Table 1 Five major steel products stocks at mills (Aug 4-10)
Product |
Volume ('000 t) |
WoW (%) |
MoM (%) |
YoY (%) |
Rebar |
2,135.9 |
-1.3% |
-31.5% |
-37.3% |
Wire rod |
615.1 |
-1.1% |
-32.5% |
-31.9% |
HR sheet |
832.0 |
2.1% |
-7.2% |
-12.7% |
CR sheet |
377.9 |
-2.4% |
-6.8% |
15.0% |
Medium plate |
784.2 |
1.8% |
1.4% |
1.3% |
Total |
4,745.1 |
-0.3% |
-22.2% |
-25.4% |
Table 2 Five major steel products stocks at traders (Aug 5-11)
Product |
Volume (mln t) |
WoW (%) |
MoM (%) |
YoY (%) |
Rebar |
8.48 |
-4.4% |
-19.9% |
-27.0% |
Wire rod |
2.69 |
-3.0% |
-16.0% |
-15.6% |
HR sheet |
4.20 |
-0.8% |
-1.3% |
-0.5% |
CR sheet |
2.18 |
-1.6% |
-0.5% |
17.6% |
Medium plate |
2.27 |
2.6% |
0.2% |
-5.6% |
Total |
19.83 |
-2.4% |
-11.9% |
-14.9% |
Note: Mysteel has started publishing the new set of data regarding traders' steel inventories since March 19 2020 to better represent the market with bigger sample sizes.
Rebar and wire rod: Sample size is increased to 429 warehouses in 132 Chinese cities from the previous 215 warehouses in 35 cities.
Hot-rolled coil (HRC): Sample size is increased to 194 warehouses in 55 cities from the previous 138 warehouses in 33 cities.
Cold-rolled coil (CRC): Sample size is increased to 182 warehouses in 29 cities from the previous 134 warehouses in 26 cities.
Medium plate: Sample size is increased to 217 warehouses in 65 cities from the previous 132 warehouses in 31 cities.
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